Actor Deepika Padukone’s recent TV commercial for a denim brand has been accused of plagiarism by ‘Yeh Ballet’ director Sooni Taraporevala. The maker of the Netflix original film called the incident ‘intellectual theft’ and added that “Copycat culture in India needs to be called out and cancelled”.
In a long Instagram post, Taraporevala wrote that how the whole set of her film has been blatantly copied for the commercial as there was no such dance studio exists in Mumbai before they built it for ‘Yeh Ballet’.
“A couple of days ago @cindy_jourdain brought this @levis_in ad to my attention. I was shocked to see our Yeh Ballet dance studio set in this ad, because it was conceptualized & created out of a derelict space by Shailaja Sharma @shalzoid (our PD) from scratch and dismantled after our shoot,” she wrote.
“No such dance studio exists in Mumbai which is why we built it. Basically @nadiaeye (the director of this ad) saw Yeh Ballet and decided to plagiarize our set down to the very last detail (swipe for screenshot). Would Levi’s and the director ever think of doing that in the west without permission / acknowledgment, and passing it off as their own creative work? This is not homage this is intellectual theft! It’s SO unfair to our wonderful production designer @shalzoid to have her work ripped off like that,” she further added.
“Yeh Ballet” follows two Mumbai kids, who dream of dancing the ballet, much to the disapproval of their families and the society and the director says that “copycat culture in India needs to be called out and cancelled. You would think a foreign production company and director would know better. Are you so creatively bankrupt? What were you thinking? @levis_in @nadiaeye @offroadfilms @rupinsuchak @newland.tv.
“PS. contrary to what clickbait news headlines say, this has nothing to do with Deepika Padukone or anyone else in the cast.”
The actor shared the video of her new ad on social media last week and it quickly attracted attention with film personalities applauding it.
